Home Buyers Survey

panthro

panthro

panthro

Soldato
Joined
19 Nov 2004
Posts
12,634
Location
Wokingham
Morning all, I'm in the process of buying a house and believe it dates to around the 1960's. I've had a look round it and it is all in good order, but I'd like a detailed report on it. Rather than going the whole hog with a full building survey I think the best option is a home buyers report, but I'm not sure how to go about finding someone qualified to do so. Should I go with recommendations, or is there some kind of ranking on who to use? I've not done this before so any help would be great.

EDIT - can a mod please change the title to "Home Buyers Survey". I have no idea what's happened.
 
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I ended up going with the one my mortgage lender used, mostly because they put £160 towards the price, I did get some other quotes from a website called reallymoving.com, put in your details and you get 4 quotes that seemed to me to come from local-ish companies, along with some ratings of the usual dubious quality...
 
Home buyers reports aren't worth the paper they're written on. I had one for my first house and it was just full of cut & paste paragraphs and included things like a vague reference to "past evidence of subsidence" when there was no such thing.

my 2nd and current, house (circa 1905) I just had a valuation survey.

I believe a full building survey at least uses a professional surveyor, whereas anyone can do a home buyers report or valuation. I may be wrong (?)

E: plus, my wife was in the house when our buyers' home buyer survey chap was checking our property. She was mighty unimpressed with how long he took (less than 10 minutes in the house). Even less impressed with the follow-up damp "expert" who didn't check most rooms as "ah, there's carpet down".
 
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I'm just in process of buying myself. My mortgage advisor said that really it's a bit of a gimmick and if I was really wanting a useful report then a full structural would be the way to go.

If there is anything serious it will show up.
 
Couldn't get a lender without one but yes, mostly a waste of time.

We had to pay £360 for all (10 meter +) roof ridge tiles to be re-applied with mortar last week. It was a very small leak but we've had to spend a good £1k for minor issues around the house (1970's) because the previous owners did ZERO basic house maintenance. Worker said our roof is in great condition though and the mortar just came away over the 40+ years but otherwise fine.

We really wanted this place so paid asking price but wish we'd offered a few thousand less because of these little issues.

Full surveys cost a lot more though so you have to judge it as you will.

£250k for a new build in Essex (near train stations to central London) get you sweet f-all, so still glad we opted for 70's place. This was last year so we saw places go up by £10k every two months. Insane.
 
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Full structural survey is the way to go. Those HB reports are a waste of time really, you might as well just get the standard valuation instead of the HB report.
 
We've just had one on a three-bed terrace we're in the process of buying — it was utter tosh.

All the way through it picked out potential issues that any similar house could have like corroded wall ties and wood worm, but said that because of a lack of access they couldn't confirm whether it was an issue or not.

Then, at the end of the report where it stated all of the required work that needed to be done, it said CORRODED WALL TIES! SERIOUS WOODWORM INFESTATION! THE HOUSE IS GOING TO FALL DOWN!!!1111

We have since checked and it's utter BS and there's nothing wrong with the house.

I'd either go with the valuation report or a full structural survey.
 
Steveocee said:
I'm just in process of buying myself. My mortgage advisor said that really it's a bit of a gimmick and if I was really wanting a useful report then a full structural would be the way to go.

If there is anything serious it will show up.
Click to expand...

I concur. Mine was a load of rubbish...
 
Hmmm, interesting responses thanks. The price for full structural surveys seems to vary massively. I'll speak to my mortgage provider and get some details on pricing for reports/surveys.
 
panthro said:
Hmmm, interesting responses thanks. The price for full structural surveys seems to vary massively. I'll speak to my mortgage provider and get some details on pricing for reports/surveys.
Click to expand...

Typically you will pay around £300 for a HB report and a full structural survey will generally be between £500 and £600 but can be more depending on the size of the property. If you find your own surveyor you can always shop around/haggle to see if someone will do it a bit cheaper.
 
Typically a home buyers report will air on the side of caution. If they don't detect something that they report on they could become liable - if it looks like damp they say it's damp and that you should get an expert in to either prove it is or isn't at which point the liability changes hands.

Every report I've had done has always saved me money because I renegotiate afterwards. The initial offer I submit is based upon the survey results if the survey spots something then I go back and ask them to either fix it or lower the offer.





M.
 
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